Palm Sugar, Palm Oil, Palm ?

Workers unload trucks of harvested oil palm fruit at the PT Perkebunan Nusantara plantation and production factory in Kertajaya, Banten Province, Indonesia, on Monday, June 20, 2011. PT Perkebunan Nusantara VIII is a state-owned palm fruit plantation and palm oil factory. Photo Credit: Dadang Tri/Bloomberg/Getty Images

A casual line in a t.v. series we're watching suggested palm sugar is a problem in the world. It's not. Palm OIL most definitely is. Did you know? Palm oil surpasses soy oil production worldwide, and most of it (~90%!) comes solely from rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia.

It's challenging being a conscientious consumer. One has to scrutinize labels on food products (not to mention cosmetics and shampoos/soaps, etc.), and be able to decipher the varying names and chemical states that palm oil and palm kernel oil hide under. But, palm oil consumption is having a staggering effect on rainforests and wildlife--orangutans especially; I'll take peace of mind over time-consuming shopping any day.

'Orangutan Foundation International Australia' has excellent info on how to determine palm oil content when it's hidden under the guise of "vegetable oil": https://orangutanfoundation.org.au/palm-oil/

This photograph, taken on February 24, 2014 during an aerial survey mission by Greenpeace at East Kotawaringin district in Central Kalimantan province on Indonesia's Borneo Island, shows cleared trees in a forest located in the concession of Karya Makmur Abadi which is being developed for a palm oil plantation. Environmental group Greenpeace on February 26 accused US consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble of responsibility for the destruction of Indonesian rainforests and the habitat of endangered orangutans and tigers. Photo credit: Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images

Film: Living in the Future's Past

Every once in a while a documentary comes along that is worth adding to the personal collection. Living in the Future's Past is once such doc.  Three of us went to see it.  We each appreciated it for it's beautiful photography, Jeff Bridges' narration, and for the diverse scientific and philosophical insights provided by the numerous expert speakers.

One of us, a former high school teacher and long-time volunteer for a local, school-age natural history program, thought it was a bit repetitive in places.  Another, a former State diplomat (aka Foreign Service Officer) turned conservationist, thought it was very focused on the human condition and human responses to the problem of why we do what we do.  And, I, a long-time naturalist with a B.S. in environmental studies, loved it's appeal to systems thinking from start to finish (but agreed it reiterated messaging heavily in the last quarter of the film.  I argued that this might have been intentional given the attention span of people in a general audience).  I fully plan on seeing it a 2nd time when my DVD arrives (via Amazon, unfortunately).

From the website's Home page:

SYNOPSIS 

"In this beautifully photographed tour de force of original thinking, Academy Award winner, Jeff Bridges shares the screen with scientists, profound thinkers and a dazzling array of Earth’s living creatures to reveal eye-opening concepts about ourselves and our past, providing fresh insights into our subconscious motivations and their unintended consequences.

Living in the Future's Past shows how no one can predict how major changes might emerge from the spontaneous actions of the many.  How energy takes many forms as it moves through and animates everything.  How, as we come to understand our true connection to all there is, we will need to redefine our expectations, not as what we will lose, but what we might gain by preparing for something different."

Pathological Consumption..."All along the way we are bumping up against limits."

On Saturday, I attended a full-day professional writing seminar hosted by the The OpEd Project and held at the newly named Simmons University in Boston (formerly Simmons College).  The course was entitled, "Writing to Change the World."  So, here goes.

This past week, a Facebook survey hit my feed asking whether the social media giant's service was of benefit to the world (which first appeared at least two years ago but has been seen regularly by users since January this year).  I responded "disagree," because my immediate consideration was its role in being an easy platform for hateful and divisive people to exploit their First Amendment rights.  Yes, it's also a way for caring and mindful people to share the insights of superb movers and shakers, such as Annie Leonard, the founder of The Story of Stuff Project, whose varied informational videos are thorough and detailed and worth every minute, and George Monbiot, the prolific journalist whose deep reads on the environment and natural world should be mandatory in every developed nation's schools.  The ramifications, though, of the hatemongers slipping through the cracks will forever undermine all that good stuff.  Lack of prevention of the very thing that landed Mr. Zuckerberg in the hot seat last summer--bots and fake accounts--has cost us greatly as a nation.  Even with their six-part, 23-subsection 'Community Standards', I think we all sense Facebook's failure in being as beneficial as Zuckerberg thinks it is.  Check out their statement pertaining to false news; have you ever observed "promotion of news literacy" in your feed?

Speaking of Monbiot and Leonard, today I re-read an oldie but goodie by Monbiot that a couple of friends happened to share on Facebook recently: his 2012 piece called 'The Gift of Death' in which he succinctly frames how we are trashing the living world at rates crazier than ever and all for nothing but stuff...junk.  "Pathological consumption has become so normalized that we scarcely notice it."  Our consumerism is rendered so normal by advertising and the media that we scarcely notice what has happened to us and our planet.

I also watched Leonard's Story of Stuff video for the fourth or fifth time since having first seen it in my Systems Thinking course at UNH in early 2008.  It, too, surfaced in my Facebook feed today.  (Too bad Facebook's survey didn't land in my feed today.)  Leonard's storytelling is clear and concise, and I can't recommend enough her 21-minute video on how our system of consumerism is a system in crisis, and one in which we "are bumping up against limits at every turn."

As we approach the holiday season and the pressure of gift-giving, please consider Leonard's Story of Stuff and Monbiot's insight (both of whom had originally shed their insight in the month of December of their respective years).  Instead of buying even more stuff for your friends and loved ones, "bake them a cake, write them a poem, give them a kiss, or tell them a joke, but for god’s sake stop trashing the planet to tell someone you care. All it shows is that you don’t."